Gold Prices Drop this Week to Reach $2,337.39/ ounce

Lebanese Forex Market

Lebanese authorities announced the decision of unifying the LBP exchange rate against USD at 89,500 starting Feb 16^th, 2024. This rate represents the BDL’s electronic platform rate used for calculating commercial banks and BDL’s balance sheet, though no decision has been reached on the “banking exchange rate” yet.

The Lebanese exchange rate has maintained a relatively stable exchange rate of approximately 89,700 USD/LBP in the parallel market by May 24^th, 2024. It is crucial to recognize that this stability is not backed by robust fundamentals, but by the cautious and tight monetary policies by BDL. Given the ongoing financial crisis and the absence of a recovery plan, Lebanon’s future remains uncertain and unstable.

As for the Euro/LBP currency pair, the Euro depreciated against the dollar-pegged LBP with the currency pair going from last week €/LBP 97,286.50 to €/LBP 96,839 by May 24^th, 2024. The Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (NEER) of the Lebanese pound slightly increased by 0.03% standing at 227.17 points on May 24^th, 2024.

International Forex Market

The USD Index (DXY) rose by 0.51% to stand at 104.98 on May 24^th, 2024. Minutes from the latest Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting concerning interest rate cuts showed that policymakers are anxious regarding stubborn inflation in which some members revealed the willingness to tighten the monetary policy further. Later on, stronger-than-anticipated US economic data supported the bets for Federal Reserve interest rate cuts in 2024. The S&P Global US Composite for May recorded 54.4, the highest since April 2022, and beating the expectations of 51.1.

The Euro slightly depreciated against the dollar by 0.44% over the course of the week and reached EUR/USD 1.0822 by May 24^th, 2024. The European Central Bank (ECB) is anticipated to cut interest rates before Federal Reserve, where the latter is set to keep interest rates high in the coming couple of months.

Similarly, the British Pound slightly depreciated against the dollar by 0.02% over the course of the week and reached GBP/USD 1.2697 by May 24^th, 2024. Traders are digesting key economic data and its consequences on the monetary policy outlook. First, UK annual inflation rate eased to 2.3% (more than the 2.1% anticipated rate), moving towards Bank of England’s (BoE) target of 2%. Second, retail sales last month dropped by 2.3%, the most this year and worse than expectations. Therefore, traders are cynical regarding interest rate cut in June and minority started talking about rate cuts in September. Meanwhile, political uncertainty is expected after the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s announcement of national elections on July 4^th.

For other currencies in Europe, the Swiss Franc depreciated by 0.63% by the end of this week to stand at USD/CHF 0.9146 on Friday May 24^th, 2024.

Elsewhere, the Japanese Yen slightly depreciated by 0.89% to reach USD/JPY 157.04 by May 24^th, 2024 after the drop in core inflation rate from 2.6% in March to 2.2% in April. Moreover, the yen is facing pressures from the US dollar after strong US economic data.

Furthermore, the Chinese Yuan slightly depreciated by 0.29% to stand at USD/CNY 7.2446 driven by strong US economic data and ongoing regional geopolitical tensions. Taiwan has put on alert on Thursday its jets, and naval and land units after Chinese military exercises this week by sending  navy ships and warplanes around the island and into the Taiwan Strait following the election of a new president earlier this week.

Meanwhile the Australian and Canadian dollars depreciated over the course of the week to stand respectively at AUD/USD 0.6604 and USD / CAD 1.3722 on Friday May 24^th, 2024.

Commodities

Gold prices decreased by 3.21% over the course of the week to reach $2,337.39 / ounce on Friday May 24^th, 2024. The precious metal reached its lowest level in two weeks after strong business activity and statements from some FOMC members regarding the need for tighter monetary policy.

Crude oil prices fell by 3.14% over the course of the week and reached $76.74 on May 24^th, 2024 following the increase in US crude inventories where Oklahoma’s storage reached its highest since July 2023 as per US Energy Information Administration (EIA). Moreover, the probability of tightening monetary policy by Federal Reserve could reduce energy demand from world’s largest oil consumer. In the meantime, Russia stated that due to technical reasons, it exceeded OPEC+ production quota in April and is preparing a plan to rectify the error. Finally, all eyes on the upcoming OPEC+ meeting on June 2^nd where it is expected to extend output cuts to prevent oversupply.

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